Why are my pictures blurry?

Camera shake, slow shutter speeds, and a moving subject are all sources of blurry photos. What can you do about it? If you own a DSLR, stop letting the camera decide what settings to use- get that thing out of auto and learn to shoot manual. Show him who's boss. We'll talk manual mode another day.

-Camera shake is exactly what it sounds like. Shaky hands? If you can't get your shutter speed high enough to compensate then break out the tripod.

-Low shutter speeds will cause blur. Most of the time you'll see this with dim lighting and no flash. Your camera is leaving the shutter open longer in attempt to gather more light, so it's very sensitive to any movement. Always shoot with a shutter speed higher than the length of your lens. Or, move to an area with better lighting and get out the tripod again.

-Your kids won't be still because grandma fed them junk food and brought them home that way as payback for all the gray hairs you gave her growing up. Back to the subject. Tripods won't help in that situation. Nothing you can do here unless you are shooting with a fast shutter speed. It's gonna take at least 1/250th to freeze motion- I prefer 1/500th. This applies to your kid's soccer game equally well. Again, you have to be the boss of the camera. Spending all that money on a DSLR and leaving it on auto isn't going to give you what you were looking for when you wrote the check. The "your camera takes good pictures" article comes to mind. Please read it.


Sometimes blur is intentional and fun. I took this at night in December of 2009 with my older camera. And I like it.

Tuesday Tips- Back it up! {Henrico NC photographer}

We all need some system of saving our important files should you become victim of the dreaded computer crash. At the very least I'd suggest purchasing an external hard drive. $100 spent on prevention is much more economical than data recovery which can run into the thousands. Here's my process:
-Files are uploaded from memory cards and the raw image data is copied over to external hard drive #1
-Backblaze runs whenever the computer is on and automatically backs up all new files. It's my favorite.
-Once your images are edited I copy them to discs and both external hard drives.
-DVD's are stored in a fireproof safe; sold by my dad. If no one is going to be home, the laptop and externals go in the safe too.

So I have 3 forms of back up here (externals, DVD's, safe) and one source at a different location should disaster strike. Something for everyone to consider. Back up those files!

Tuesday Tips- backgrounds

Hello world. Tonight I'm clickin' it old school. I brought back some pretty bad pictures from the archives to show you something. All were taken early 2008 with a Nikon d40 set to auto or aperture priority mode. Hiss boo to auto, but that's another topic.

Exhibit A- Yep, there's my kid on her bike 2.5 years ago. But what else do you see? Can your eyes stay still or do you instantly feel the need to go looking from one side to the other? To the left we have some green box thing and a house, neither of which are part of my subject.
Exhibit B- She'd be a lot more interesting if that Dora backpack, random junk, and big green chair weren't in the picture. I had no concept of the word "subject" in photography at this point. Wooden desks and Mrs. Kelly's un-air-conditioned-teenage boy smelling-inferno of an English class were all that came to mind at this point when the word subject was mentioned.
Exhibit C Does this one have a different feel than the other two?

In the last photo you know who the subject is and she isn't cluttered by beastly green chairs or cartoon covered backpacks. Your eyes don't have to get all dazed and confused from scanning one end of the photo to the next. Which one would you choose to print?

There are times when a cluttered background can make your subject stand out just as well as a clean one. Typically they are telling a story and have been created by the photographer with purpose in mind. This is difficult to pull off effectively.

Watch your backgrounds (and foregrounds) for better photos. Look all over the frame before you press the shutter. Sometimes all you need to do is move something out of the way, or move your own feet over a little to change the perspective.